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Getting a rig, need advice.
raige
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The legions of PA nerds have helped a number of people with useful advice on buying/building a new pc of the best performance without spending the equivalent of a personal jet, and I now humbly request the same assistance.
I've been looking a buying a new pc for school b/c I just started my first year as an Animation student and I'd like to get a rig that can run Maya pretty well. During my research, I learned that gaming rigs are often the best-suited at the right price b/c they too depend heavily on graphics. After the tragic loss of my last rig to an ex-girlfriend (I know, I know...) I am elated at the idea of getting a new set-up.
Here's what I know I kinda need... at least a dual-core and if possible within my budget, a quad-core and I'm not sure I fully understand the concept of memory in your video-card, but I was told that to run Maya smoothly, I should have at least 258 mb and preferably 512 mb, but I rarely see in pre-built machines except for the most extreme high-end and I don't really need a huge hard drive and all that jazz as I mostly use an external. So if anyone could explain a bit about that to me and what the options are, that would be a great deal of help.
I know that building my own might be the best idea for customization purposes, but I'm not sure I have the technical skill... though I hear it's somewhat easier with these new cases and such that are "screwless" as it were. I'm not much of a handyman. Also, it seems to me that unless you seriously know what you're doing buying all the parts seperately adds up to more than an assembled rig.
My budget is less than 1600 for the pc and about 200 for a monitor, which isn't a whole lot for what I want to do, but I think it should be sufficient. Sorry for the somewhat rambling/meandering post. This is why I need help. Any advice is greatly appreciated thanks.
I've been looking a buying a new pc for school b/c I just started my first year as an Animation student and I'd like to get a rig that can run Maya pretty well. During my research, I learned that gaming rigs are often the best-suited at the right price b/c they too depend heavily on graphics. After the tragic loss of my last rig to an ex-girlfriend (I know, I know...) I am elated at the idea of getting a new set-up.
Here's what I know I kinda need... at least a dual-core and if possible within my budget, a quad-core and I'm not sure I fully understand the concept of memory in your video-card, but I was told that to run Maya smoothly, I should have at least 258 mb and preferably 512 mb, but I rarely see in pre-built machines except for the most extreme high-end and I don't really need a huge hard drive and all that jazz as I mostly use an external. So if anyone could explain a bit about that to me and what the options are, that would be a great deal of help.
I know that building my own might be the best idea for customization purposes, but I'm not sure I have the technical skill... though I hear it's somewhat easier with these new cases and such that are "screwless" as it were. I'm not much of a handyman. Also, it seems to me that unless you seriously know what you're doing buying all the parts seperately adds up to more than an assembled rig.
My budget is less than 1600 for the pc and about 200 for a monitor, which isn't a whole lot for what I want to do, but I think it should be sufficient. Sorry for the somewhat rambling/meandering post. This is why I need help. Any advice is greatly appreciated thanks.
raige on
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Also, building a PC isn't really that hard. I built my first PC in 2003. While it took me a good chunk of a day to get everything working, I think it was worth it for the experience. Now I pretty much know what everything does and how to upgrade it if I need to (although, sadly, mine isn't very upgradeable anymore). I used a guide from Tom's Hardware and found it quite handy. AnandTech is also supposed to be pretty good.
My Backloggery
Just as a quick checkthrough on new egg gives the prices as something like
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 - $279.99
SAMSUNG SpinPoint 400GB - $84.99
EVGA8800GTS 640MB - 575Mhz - $384.99
CORSAIR 550W Power Supply - $104.99
2x CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 - $208.00
ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 - $154.99
Vista 64Bit OEM - $111.99
Antec P180 Silver - $129.99
Total $1,459.93 (+$140 mail in rebate)
Obviously, change out components that you might want (different case/motherboard or 2x2GB ram sticks/2nd hard drive and some sort of heatsink).
As for building, it's easier than ever. Only tricky part imo is applying the thermal compound and heatsink to the CPU. Just make sure you have plenty of space to work in though, and it should be fine.